Town Square

Letter: Inconsistency in garbage changes

Posted by Ben Around
a resident of Birdland
on May 22, 2009 at 12:02 pm

Garbage companies are monopolies. The only thing that can be done is start a new one…impossible. Force the PG to split into two competing companies, and police collusion. Buy a trailer and dump your garbage in Livermore or even at PG and see if that's cheaper…nope.
So an old story for new to Pleasanton folks. (Abbreviated story). The gov. said reduce trash or be forced to not get a large sum of money. PG decided to run trash over a conveyor and pull recyclables to meet the demanded reduction. Why not have us recycle or encourage it in any way? They receive the money for the recyclables for virtually free for what they pay the conveyor workers. Win/win for them. Now they want us to separate it for them and raise cost? Recycling cans should be included with a price reduction. They have turned this old story into a Win/Win/Win again.

Posted by Bill Bennett
a resident of Carlton Oaks
on May 29, 2009 at 8:03 am

Yes, there is something we can do about it. You don't have to start a new company from scratch--there are already plenty out there that would love to serve Pleasanton. Other cities periodically allow competitive firms to bid on garbage service. That's why Dublin and Livermore's rates are half of ours.

Unfortunately, since the City Council slid the item into the April 7th agenda without doing a city-wide notification of the changes they were planning on approving, including two rate hikes, they made it difficult (intentionally?) for anyone to come in behind the contract changes and suggest less expensive, more viable options.

With the current service, there are recycling options we could have explored, like getting the word out on using the blue bags. When the Mayor rudely shut down a speaker on this subject at the last City Council meeting, she said the city had tried everything to get people to use the bags and nothing worked. Well, the City/PGS hasn't tried actually dropping a roll of bags (with instructions for use attached) off at each residence when they pick up the trash - say, once a quarter.

With the new recycling plan, since the Council was bound and determined to approve it, they also could have considered offering a smaller 35 gallon recycle bin as well as trash bin - less cost to both PGS and us, less space in our garage/yard/driveway.

It really is too bad that all of the notification on this issue from the PGS/the city was after the fact when we got our bill with the first rate increase. . .

Posted by Citizen
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jun 1, 2009 at 9:29 pm

The voters of Pleasanton had their chance to change the city management in the last Mayoral election and didn't....BIG mistake!

I am appalled that the city council approved this garbage program. I do NOT want another can in my yard....and I sure as heck do NOT want to pay more for less. Who does the garbage company know on the city council to get this ludricrous program approved without first informing the public. Isn't it also interesting that you can't get two 35 gallon bins for a cheaper rate. Why is that? I am a single resident. How am I ever going to fill a 96 gallon bin every week with recyclables? This is ludicrous. Wasn't it not long ago that articles were written in the paper about barges loaded with recyclables sitting outside ports because they had nowhere to put the recyclables. Basically nobody would buy them. Chalk another one up for the dictatorship.